


Whatever May Come Will Come Through

by orphan_account



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 00:58:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2753642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David wants to confide in Sarah about the extent of his relationship with Jack. Jack has reservations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whatever May Come Will Come Through

It’s almost easy, being with Jack. Especially in moments like this, when he’s sprawled across the roof of David’s building with an apple in his hand, looking all golden and god-like in the last rays of the evening sun. It’s easy for David to settle against him, to snatch the apple from his hand and take a bite, to laugh at the surprised “Hey!” it elicits. He knows that when he looks at his partner he will see nothing but pride and amusement. A month ago, David would never have done something like that. Jack is well aware of the strength of his influence.

What isn’t easy is the part that comes next. The words seem to stick in the back of his throat, so he tilts his head up to kiss Jack’s cheek. An apology in advance.

“I think I could tell my sister,” he finally manages to blurt out. There, it’s done.

Beside him, Jack tenses.

He starts to backpedal. “It was just an idea, really. Wishful thinking. I don’t know what I was thinking. I _wasn’t_. I was–”

“Dave,” Jack sighs, cutting him off. He presses the softest of kisses to David’s lips, as if to make certain that he’s truly stopped his mouth. When they pull apart, David can see the little crease between his eyebrows that means he’s really turning something over in his head.

“Not yet,” he says. A promise.

“It can wait,” David replies. A compromise.

~~~

Jack is not half as good a liar as he thinks he is. Spot Conlon has known this for years. When the going gets tough he can take care of himself just fine. But when his guard is down, his face is an open book. Here at the lodging house on Duane Street, there’s no reason for his walls to be up. Normally, no one would be paying attention to him. Normally, Spot stays the night in his own borough.

But not tonight.

And tonight is a risky night for Jack, because David is there as well. He is asleep with his head in his selling partner’s lap, and everything Jack has managed to keep hidden for so long is written clear across his face. He has a hand in David’s hair, needlessly petting, and his expression is one of such tenderness that Spot almost feels compelled to look away. As if he’s seeing something he shouldn’t.

Instead, he clears his throat. Loudly.

“Jacky-boy,” he beckons sharply, and jerks his head in the direction of the door. “A word?”

Jack nods, and Spot leaves him to take care of David. He makes himself comfortable on the curb in front of the Lodging House and lights up a cigarette.

Moments later, he can hear footsteps behind him. He does not have to turn to know it is Jack – he knows it from the way he walks, the way he shuffles his feet once he’s come to a halt.

He does not comment on the coolness of the night. There is no pretense, no forced small talk with these two. Spot Conlon does not beat around the bush.

“People are gonna use him to get to you, you know,” he warns.

Jack snorts, and takes a seat next to him. “Like who? You?”

“Oh I dunno, Pulitzer maybe? The Delanceys - you think I don’t know about that?”

“That’s old news,” Jack says, dismissing the accusations with a scowl. He holds out his hand for Spot’s cigarette.

After he’s taken a drag, Spot dives back in. “Look, you two can do what you want. It ain’t my business. But don’t be _stupid_.”

“You think I don’t know what’s at stake here?!” Jack exclaims, practically yelling, and the sound of his voice cuts through the stillness of the night.

Spot gives him a pointed look.

Jack seems to deflate then, and he hugs his knees to his chest like a little child. “Jesus, Spot, you think everyone knows?”

Spot shrugs. “The sharp ones, sure. But I can’t say you got too many of those in Manhattan. I’d say you’re safe.”

They smoke in silence for a moment. But there is one more question tugging at Spot Conlon’s lips, and even the king of Brooklyn has only so much self-control.

“You two in this for the long run?” He plays at nonchalance, but deep in his heart of hearts he knows that he truly cares. Jack is a friend, as rare as those are for him.

So when his companion grins, Spot recognizes that it’s only a front. And beneath his casual response of “Til he gets tired of me, at least,” is a deep-seated worry that David actually will.

But Jack doesn’t know what Spot knows. Jack was not there after the trial to see the way David fought to get him back. To see how he tossed aside each of his morals – his entire perception of the way the world worked – entirely for Jack’s benefit.

And so Spot lays a hand on his shoulder, and when he speaks he infuses each word with meaning.

“I think he may be more stubborn than you give him credit for.”

~~~

“But Papa, I don’t like him!”

The sound of his sister’s distress yanks David from his sleep. He had fallen asleep at his desk again.

“I don’t want to have dinner with his family. He’s boring, and rude, and – and yesterday he tried to get me to laugh with him about the way David rolls his shirtsleeves up to make it less obvious that they aren’t long enough for him. As if it was funny!”

Alone in his room, David tugs at his sleeves. He hadn’t wanted his family to know about that.

“Well he _can’t_ have thought that through,” their father muses, sounding more thoughtful than concerned. “And did you tell him off?”

“Papa I couldn’t stand to talk another minute with him! And if I have to sit through a whole meal with him I don’t know what I’ll _do_ ,” Sarah wails, near tears. “You have to tell her we can’t do it.”

David hears his father sigh. “Sometimes when your mother gets an idea into her head, it’s best to let her figure out on her own that it isn’t going to work out.”

There is barely enough warning for David to resume the pretense of studying before Sarah storms into their shared bedroom.

“I suppose you were listening in,” she snaps, immediately defensive.

“Well it’s a little hard not to, considering we have a _curtain_ for a door,” David replies sourly. “And next time tell him to worry about his own sleeves.”

Sarah’s expression seems to crumble. “Oh god, David, I _hate_ him! I don’t care how much Mama likes their family, he’s _horrible!_ ”

It’s always made him uncomfortable when Sarah and Mama fight, even when he knows which one he agrees with. He almost prefers it when Sarah is angry at him, because at least then he knows that he usually deserves it.

“Do you think he might have a secret wife hidden in his attic too?”

Sarah tosses a pillow at his head, which he manages to deflect. “I’m not in the mood to argue about _Jane Eyre_ with you right now.”

“Sorry,” he mutters, apologizing not only for his impudence but for the entire mess of a situation.

“I’d rather marry Mr. Rochester than him, anyhow,” his sister carries on. “I’d rather marry _Charlotte Brontë_ than him!”

David jerks around in his seat and looks Sarah directly in the eyes. “Would you?” He asks, surprising even himself with the intensity of his tone.

“Would I what?” Sarah asks, confused and concerned all at once.

“Marry Charlotte Brontë,” David replies. He’s holding his breath. Suddenly, everything in the world depends on her answer.

“David, Charlotte Brontë has been dead for over forty years,” Sarah says slowly. “Are you feeling alright?”

He deflates, feeling slightly ridiculous.

“Tired,” he admits, a half-truth. “I fell asleep at my desk earlier.”

Sarah gets up and puts a hand to his forehead. David has to fight back the urge to tell her everything.

 _Not yet_ , he hears in Jack’s voice. _Not yet not yet not yet not yet_.

~~~

It’s not the arguing that he hates – he and David argue plenty. It’s the way David’s coming to all the wrong conclusions.

“I’m not asking you to make this public Jack, I’m not _completely_ naïve.”

David’s voice is like ice. Like a knife. “I’m just asking if I can stop lying to my sister. Do you honestly think she’d tell people if I asked her not to?”

“That ain’t what this is about, Dave,” Jack sighs.

If anything, that sets him off further. “Oh, really? Well then, would you care to share with me what this is about?”

This is dangerous ground, Jack knows, but he also knows that there’s no way around this. Not this time.

“Look, if this don’t work out it’s gonna be a whole lot easier for you to cut ties if nobody else knows about us.”

David recoils as if hit. “Oh and you were planning on that, were you?”

It’s the alleyway all over again, how David never manages to see how much looking after he really needs. How Jack is messing this all up. How he’s never been able to keep a good thing in his life.

“No, but we can’t just act like it might not happen.”

The way David looks at him then, it damn near rips him in half. If anyone else had put that look on David’s face, Jack would’ve punched their lights out.

David’s voice drops to a near-whisper. “Are you ashamed of me?”

“Christ, Davey, no! Try the other way around, maybe?!” Jack wants to run to him and hug him, but at this moment he isn’t sure he’s allowed even to touch him. “I just meant if you, you know, get all successful and meet some nice girl–”

David scoffs a laugh, but Jack presses on, stubbornly.

“Okay, a boy then. You meet some boy with a real education and a nice family who’s better company than me, and … and sure you can’t bring him home to your folks, but at least he can keep up with you when you talk about all your poets, and– ”

“I don’t want some other boy,” David interrupts, disbelief written all across his features. “Why would I want that when I have _you?_ ”

“Yeah, you say that right now,” Jack argues, but David doesn’t even let him finish.

“And now isn’t enough for me to know what I want?” David argues. “Or are you the only one who’s allowed to be certain?”

“That’s different.”

David arches an eyebrow, daring him to explain himself further, and he tries. He is grasping at straws, but he tries.

“I’m older?”

“You are _completely ridiculous_ ,” David says slowly, but then he is laughing and Jack is laughing and they are holding each other, and then David’s mouth is on his and everything is right again.

~~~

Sarah is grinning while she brushes out the curls in her hair, laughing despite the awful dinner they’ve endured with a boy she couldn’t care less about, because even the worst of events can be softened by retrospect.

“But can you imagine what Jack would have said if he’d been there? Gosh, I wish he was there.”

“Me too,” David replies softly. There’s a moment of silence before he can meet his sister’s eye, and in that moment he makes a decision.

“I love him,” he admits.

His sister turns to him and hugs him tightly, and he bites the inside of his cheek. He will not cry. Not now.

“I know you do, Davey. I know.”


End file.
